The Origins of ‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’

The next chapter in FX’s “American Horror Story” series continues tonight, delving into the forgotten worlds of freak show performers. Set in Jupiter, Florida in 1952, where Jessica Lange plays Elsa Mars, a German singer who runs one of the last freak shows that promises paying customers a glimpse into “mother nature’s mistakes.” The new season features “Horror Story” regulars Sarah Paulson as conjoined twins Dot and Bette Tattler, Evan Peters as Jimmy Darling the Lobster Boy, Kathy Bates as the Bearded Lady, Angela Bassett as Desiree Dupree, a three-breasted woman, and veteran actor John Carroll Lynch as Twisty the Clown, one of the scariest looking characters the series has even rolled out.

The genesis for the new season actually came from Lange, who suggested the idea to “Horror Story” creator Ryan Murphy. “She’s a photographer and she’s always been interested in photographing people on the outside, the disenfranchised,” Murphy tells Speakeasy. “Her original take was to do it in the 1920s. The more I researched it, the more I thought it would be more poignant and indeed scary to do it at the end of that world as opposed to the height of it.”